KEXP Reviews

The Wrights are the husband-and-wife duo of Adam and Shannon Wright.
Their debut album is the first release on the new Nashville subsidiary
ACR, which stands for Alan's Country Records. The Alan in question
happens to be Adam Wright's uncle, Alan Jackson. While some might wonder
if family ties are stronger than talent here, the Wrights previously
showed they could write some damn good country songs by contributing two
of the best on Jackson's last album, and judging by the results of their
debut album, they're also pretty good at making their own records.

Down This Road shares the low-key, neo-traditional sensibility of Jackson,
but they also go their own way in many respects. Adam's modest singing is
respectable though not nearly as resonant as his uncle's. On the other
hand, the evocative twang of Shannon's vocals is captivating, and their
voices blend beautifully, with the duo's harmonies being one of the
highlights of the album. And while country singers often turn to songs
from other folks (or at least co-writers), the Wrights wrote every song
here, with the results ranging from rock-solid to simply sublime country
music.

Their songs are fleshed out by a laid-back country sound with lots of
acoustic instrumentation, though the dominant instruments are Paul
Franklin's gorgeous pedal steel and Pig Robbins' assured piano. Take the
relaxed hard-country sound of Jackson's last album and combine it with the
acoustic-steeped records of the neo-traditional duos of the '80s like the
Judds and the O'Kanes, and you get pretty close to the sound of this
charming, thoroughly country album. 5/6/2005
- Don Slack